卡特里娜飓风劫后余生

Ichabods

Description: Trendy clothing and accessory store 描述：流行服装饰品店

Founder: Chris Reams 创始人：克里斯·里姆斯

Location: New Orleans 地点：新奥尔良

Projected 2006 Sales: $500,000 2006年预计营业额： 500000美元

Disaster Strikes: Last August, Chris Reams sat in a Las Vegas hotel room transfixed to the TV. Hurricane Katrina, the worst natural disaster ever to hit the country, was unfolding live on the screen. "It was like watching my own 9/11, only Mother Nature was the terrorist this time," says Reams, 31. "I kept thinking of how different the city I loved was going to be upon my return and wondered what would be left." Of all the images of businesses being destroyed, Reams desperately searched for one that would show if his clothing shop, Ichabod's, had survived.
灾难来袭：去年8月份，克里斯·里姆斯坐在拉斯维加斯的一个酒店房间里，呆呆地望着电视机。美国有史以来最严重的自然灾害飓风卡特里娜不断出现在屏幕上。"这好像是在看我自己的9/11，只不过这次的恐怖分子是大自然，"31岁的克里斯·里姆斯说。 "我不停地思考我深爱的城市在我回去后会变成什么样子，并且不知道会剩下什么东西"。在所有显示公司遭受破坏的图片中，里姆斯绝望地寻找着一张能显示他的服装店Ichabods安危的图片。

It didn't. Like tens of thousands of others, the business was in ruins.

他的服装店没有那么幸运。和成千上万的其他商店一样，他的商店变成了一片废墟。

Reams had flown to Las Vegas a day before the storm hit to attend a trade show. It would take him more than a month to return home after staying with family members in St. Louis. He found that although the shop had avoided the full affects of flooding, the looters had spared nothing. "It was horrible," Reams remembers. "I didn't stay in there long; I couldn't bear it." They had broken in, stolen most of his goods and destroyed what they couldn't take.

风暴来袭的前一天，他已经飞往拉斯维加斯参加一个交易会。他与家人在圣路易停留了一个多月后才回到了家乡。他发现商店虽然躲过了洪水的全面袭击，但却没躲过打劫者的全面洗劫。 "太可怕了，"里姆斯回忆说。"我在那儿没呆多久，我无法忍受"。打劫者破门而入，偷走他大部分商品，并且带不走的就毁掉了。

Before the Storm: Ichabod's had opened in New Orleans just a few months before Katrina hit. The trendy clothing store featured many of Reams' own designs. Originally located in nearby Covington, where he lived, Reams had moved the operation in April, hoping to profit from the lucrative young market provided by the nearby Tulane and Loyola University campuses. "Normally, the summer is a slow time for retail," Reams recalls. "We were taking it easy, waiting for school to start."
暴风雨前：卡特里娜来袭之前，Ichabod刚在新奥尔良开业几个月。这个流行服装店的特色是里姆斯自己设计的服装。服装店原来位于附近covington，里姆斯在那里住，4月份搬了店址。附近的杜兰和罗耀拉大学校园提供了可以获利的年轻人市场，他希望能从中获利。"一般来说，夏季是零售业的淡季"里姆斯回忆道。 "我们不紧不慢，等着学校开学" 。

Home Sweet Home: When he returned to his home 30 minutes outside of New Orleans, there wasn't much left to greet him. "I have a plastic-sheet roof, no garage and plenty of debris," Reams says. "I'm trying to keep from going crazy most days."
甜美的家：当他回到位于新奥尔良30分钟路程以外的家时，家中几乎什么都没有了。 "我有一个塑料板屋顶，没有车库，以及大量的碎片，"里姆斯说。 "大多数日子我都努力不让自己疯掉" 。

While surveying the damage done to his house, Reams found that his clothing inventory and screen-printing equipment had survived. Determined to find a way to get back on his feet quickly, he took what he could and set up a temporary workspace in his fiancée's father's home in Covington.

在调查房子损坏情况时，里姆斯发现他的服装库存和丝网印刷设备幸免于难。他决心要迅速东山再起，他带上所有能带的东西，在他未婚妻的父亲位于Covington的家中建了一个临时工作区 。

Bright Idea: With help from his sister and other friends who had internet connections, Reams successfully re-launched his website in one week, complete with new pictures of his shirts. But what really saved Reams was his idea to talk to his competitor in New Orleans, Sarah Wheelock, owner of Funky Monkey. Somehow, the vintage clothing store across the street from his evaded the wrath of looters. "Maybe people didn't want used clothing," Reams laughs.

聪明的主意：在他姐姐和其他能上网的朋友们的帮助下，在一周之内里姆斯成功地重新启动了自己的网站，上面还有新的衬衫照片。但真正挽救弄里姆斯的是他的主意。他想跟他在新奥尔良的竞争对手，Funky Monkey的所有者莎拉·惠洛克谈一谈。不知出于什么原因，这家和他一街之隔的特色服装商店居然躲过了掠夺者的扫荡。 "也许人们不喜欢旧衣服吧，"里姆斯笑道。

After reopening, Funky Monkey faced inventory trouble. Some of the nearby residents of the city had moved back in, and they needed clothes, but shipping was a nightmare. So Reams proposed an alliance: He would supply her with his designs, and she would give him 50 percent of the sales on his clothing. The partnership worked, and Funky Monkey has even dedicated more space to Reams' designs. With 2006 sales projected to exceed $500,000, Reams says he--like many other business owners in the area--has no plans to reopen his old store. (Seven other businesses on his street have permanently closed.)
重新开业之后，Funky Monkey面临着库存的麻烦。一些附近的居民已经搬回来住了，他们需要衣服，但运送是大麻烦。所以里姆斯建议组成联盟：他用自己的设计给她供货，她把他衣服销售额的50 ％给他。合伙成功了，Funky Monkey甚至给里姆斯的设计品腾出了更多空间。（虽然）2006年的销售额预计超过50万美元，像该地区许多其他业主一样，里姆斯说他没有重开旧店的计划。 （和他一条街上的其余七家已经永久关张了） 。

Says Reams of the lessons he learned from the disaster, "[Katrina] forced me to really just move faster on some things I should have done a long time ago, [like] converting [the website] more … [and] getting to know your neighbors."
谈到从灾难中吸取的教训，里姆斯说，" [飓风]迫使我真正地以更快的速度去做那些很久以前就该完成的事情，[比如]更新[网站]更多内容… … [以及]了解你的邻居"。